Two weeks had passed since the hospital discharged Asher with a folder of painkillers, a stern warning about rest, and a bill that would haunt his inbox for months. The bruises had faded to sickly yellows, the stitches dissolved or been snipped away, but the memories refused to dull. New York City moved on around him as if nothing had happened—subways rattled, taxis honked, pedestrians streamed past in endless hurried rivers. Hudson University's collapse had already slipped from the front pages, buried under fresh headlines about stock dips and celebrity scandals. Life normalized quickly when the official story was convenient.
Asher walked the Lower East Side streets that evening, hands shoved deep in the pockets of a worn black coat. His dark hair had grown longer in the interim, falling just past his ears to brush the nape of his neck in soft waves. His eyes—striking blue against pale skin—scanned the neon signs and graffiti-tagged doorways with a new wariness. He felt shorter than before, or maybe the world just seemed taller now that he knew what hid in its shadows. Slightly below average height, he'd always told himself, though friends used to tease him about being "fun-sized." Tonight the joke felt distant.
He stopped outside a narrow storefront squeezed between a bodega and a shuttered tattoo parlor. The sign above the door read **Vapor Cocktails** in flickering purple cursive, the kind of place that looked like it had been forgotten by gentrification. No windows, just a heavy black door with a small brass knocker shaped like a crescent moon. Asher pushed inside.
The interior was dim, lit by strings of Edison bulbs and the soft glow of backlit liquor shelves. Low jazz murmured from hidden speakers. A handful of patrons sat at scattered tables, murmuring over glowing drinks. Asher crossed straight to the long mahogany bar.
The bartender—a wiry man in his forties with a neatly trimmed beard—polished a glass without looking up. Asher tapped the counter three times: sharp, deliberate, the rhythm of someone who had learned the code the hard way.
The man paused, set the glass down, and met Asher's gaze with polite curiosity.
"I'd like the Starlight Cocktail," Asher said quietly, "brewed in Black Heaven."
The bartender's polite smile deepened into something knowing. "What stars, gentleman?"
Asher returned a light smile of his own. "The Azure Storm stars."
A subtle nod. The bartender gestured toward a narrow hallway at the back. "Right this way, sir."
Asher followed him past the restrooms and a storage door marked "Employees Only." The hallway ended at a plain wall panel. The bartender pressed a hidden catch; the panel slid aside to reveal a small alcove. On the floor lay an intricate runic circle etched in silver and faintly luminous blue—arcane symbols interlocking in precise geometric patterns. No explanation. No fanfare.
Asher stepped into the center. The runes ignited with a warm, golden light that climbed his legs like liquid fire—comforting rather than burning. Starlight erupted around him in a silent torrent, swirling white and violet, pulling him apart and reassembling him elsewhere in the space of a heartbeat.
He reappeared standing in a windowless chamber.
The air here felt thicker, charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm. Stone walls rose smooth and dark, veined with the same faint blue luminescence as the runes. A single overhead fixture—a floating orb of pale light—cast soft shadows. No doors visible. No obvious exits. Just the three of them.
To his left stood a tall man in a matte-black tactical vest over a dark shirt, a full-face gas mask concealing everything but sharp green eyes that gleamed through the tinted lenses. His long black hair was pulled into a tight bun, secured by a slender silver hairpin shaped like a thorned vine. The build was lithe yet unmistakably powerful—muscles coiled under lean lines, the posture of someone who moved like a blade when needed.
Beside him, a woman in a flowing blue kimono embroidered with countless silver leaves that seemed to shift in the low light, as though caught in an unseen breeze. Her hair was pinned up in an elegant twist, and her expression was calm, almost serene, but her eyes tracked Asher with quiet assessment.
Asher exhaled, letting the disorientation settle. He turned to the masked man and spoke in a deliberately carefree, jovial tone that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Well, Zerav, it's nice to meet you once again. But mind if I ask where the hell I am?"
Zerav tilted his head slightly. Through the mask's filter, his voice emerged bored, tired, edged with faint electronic distortion—like someone who had sighed at too many impossible things.
"The Bermuda Triangle."
Asher blinked. Then laughed—a short, sharp sound that echoed off the stone.
"You're kidding."
Zerav didn't move. "Do I look like I'm in the mood for jokes?"
The woman in the kimono stepped forward one graceful pace. Her voice was soft, measured. "Not the ocean itself, obviously. A pocket. A stabilized rift anchored here. The myths make excellent camouflage—people look for lost ships and vanished planes, not doorways hidden in plain sight."
Asher rubbed the back of his neck, hair brushing his fingers. "So the college wasn't the first time something slipped through. And this—" he gestured at the room, at them, at the absurdity of it all "—this is the response? A secret clubhouse in the middle of the world's most famous mystery zone?"
Zerav crossed his arms. "Think of it as quarantine. Observation. Containment. The thing you saw isn't the only one. The veil thins in places like this. New York's collapse was loud. Messy. It drew attention."
Asher's easy smile faded. The memory of that oil-black creature flashed behind his eyes—teeth, limbs, the casual way it had ended lives. "And you're what? Monster hunters? Government black-ops? Cultists with better interior decorators?"
The woman inclined her head. "We're the ones who clean up when the stories stop being stories. Call us custodians. Or survivors. Names don't matter as much as results."
Zerav finally reached up and unlatched the side of his mask, sliding it off with practiced efficiency. His face was sharp-angled, pale, marked by a thin scar that ran from left temple to jaw. Green eyes regarded Asher without warmth or hostility—just assessment.
"You survived," Zerav said flatly. "That makes you useful. Or cursed. We haven't decided yet."
Asher met his gaze. The carefree tone slipped away, replaced by something harder. "I didn't ask to survive. But if that thing's still out there—if more are coming—I'm not sitting in a hospital bed waiting for round two."
Silence stretched for a beat.
The woman smiled faintly. "Good. Because round two is already here."
Somewhere beyond the stone walls, far above in the sunlit world, the Atlantic rolled on, hiding its secrets beneath endless blue. Down here, in the pocket between realities, the real conversation was just beginning.
(Word count: 1,024)